Racing Coverage

The Hulman-George family should retain ownership of the IndyCar Series and Indianapolis Motor Speedway, according to a report from a consulting group it hired to evaluate business operations, including running the Indianapolis 500.

The Boston Consulting Group offered a wide array of suggestions on how to better position the troubled open-wheel series and historic speedway in a 115-page report, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press.

Among the ideas: a 15-race IndyCar schedule in major American cities held over 19 weeks; a three-race playoff with a season finale on the road course at Indy; a new marketing strategy promoting IndyCar’s “daredevil drivers”; using just one U.S. television partner instead of both ABC/ESPN and NBC Sports Network; overhauling the ticket pricing at IMS in tiers that would raise the cost of the most expensive Indy 500 ticket from $150 to $200 and lower almost every ticket for the Brickyard 400 and Red Bull Grand Prix.

Hulman & Co. is under no obligation to follow the suggestions.

The consulting firm was hired at the end of last season, which many considered to be one of the best in terms of on-track competition.

But boardroom politics and IndyCar’s history of dysfunction overshadowed the racing and American driver Ryan Hunter-Reay’s championship.

Annett out of hospital following surgery

NASCAR driver Michael Annett was released from a hospital Friday following surgery to repair a fractured and dislocated sternum.

His Richard Petty Motorsports team says the recovery process could take two months for the Nationwide Series driver.

Annett was injured in a crash in the series opener at Daytona International Speedway on Saturday. He spent one night in a Daytona Beach hospital before returning to North Carolina. His injuries were diagnosed in Charlotte, and he underwent surgery Tuesday.

Annett was injured before the last-lap crash that sent debris into the grandstands that injured more than two dozen fans.

Clements’ remarks keep him in hot water

Jeremy Clements, who was suspended this week for making an insensitive remark to a reporter at Daytona, used the N-word during an interview with MTV, MTV News reported.

Marty Beckerman, an associate editor for MTV’s Guy Code blog, said that Clements “blurted out [a phrase that used the n-word]” during an interview at Daytona International Speedway.

NASCAR announced Wednesday that it had suspended Clements indefinitely for violating its Code of Conduct by making an “insensitive and intolerable” remark.

Beckerman, who was covering the Daytona 500 for his MTV blog, said he talked to Clements with a NASCAR employee.

“I was there to do a fish-out-of-water story about going to NASCAR and having a wild, crazy weekend,” Beckerman told MTV News. “And, we were doing interviews with many of the drivers, and I was on the way to another interview — we were looking for [driver] Johanna Long’s trailer — and the NASCAR publicist called Mr. Clements over and asked him for help finding her.

“He walked us toward where she was, and on the way over, I explained to him that Guy Code is rules for guys, how you treat your friends, how you treat your ladies, things like that. I was there to do a humor piece, so I asked him what would be Guy Code for race car drivers, and he blurted out [a phrase that used the n-word].”

Beckerman told MTV News that Clements did not use the phrase in reference to a specific driver, but was saying that “if you drive roughly, you’ll be treated roughly.”